What are these?

[shaggy]

Parasitic caterpillars? So just in the last few days these have shown up on one of my trees in the yard. The tree is now half gone and I am not sure if it's been eaten or is dying? They are black grubs inside and usually it's only a couple on the tree at a time but man this time it's an infestation.

 

[Eric Revo]

bagworms..tough to get rid of ...better get on that one pretty quickly.

 

[Homebrewale]

Yep - bagworms. Many sites say you need to spray by early June to kill them. After that, it isn't effective. If you can't spray, you can remove each one by hand. I had a small evergreen with bagworms. I got rid of them by picking off the bags.

https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/bagworms

 

[shaggy]

Yep - bagworms. Many sites say you need to spray by early June to kill them. After that, it isn't effective. If you can't spray, you can remove each one by hand. I had a small evergreen with bagworms. I got rid of them by picking off the bags.

https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/bagworms

There's a thousand of them. Will the tree survive if the spray doesn't work?

 

[Eric Revo]

There's a thousand of them. Will the tree survive if the spray doesn't work?

There's a drench that you can use that the tree takes up into the healthy branches and will kill the worms...but if the branches are already defoliated and dying it won't do any good except to prevent further damage.

 

[Homebrewale]

You can call your local agriculture extension office and ask.

 

[hitman6397]

We had them a couple of years ago and had to pick them all off and burn them to get rid of them. We found them all over the place not just on the cedar trees.

 

[41magnum]

That has been going on for yrs on that tree, just didn't get seen, unfortunately

gotta pick em off THEN spray

 

[41magnum]

We spent nearly a week helping friends pick thousands off 3 trees of theirs a few yrs back.

It can be done, just takes time and commitment.

 

[ScottyB]

Tie the truck to that one....pull it up and haul it off or burn it.....it will never look the same

 

[Justin]

Contact sprays won’t do anything to them at this point. Damaged trees likely won’t grow back. Soil drenches are sketchy, as dosage isn’t always perfect and sometimes you end up creating a resistant bug.

 

[shaggy]

My parents neighbor worked with the state agriculture department and did bug catching and studies and he has confirmed all of y'alls advice. Only hope would be to pick every cocoon and then hope the tree grows back. He says once the cocoon is formed sprays will not penetrate it. So looks like tomorrow will be spent picking cocoons.

Question is would it be worth it to cut some of the bigger ones out and go catch some bream with them?

 

[Jrbrandt25]

Little tree killing bastards

 

[shaggy]

Little tree killing bastards

These SOBs got me again. They have decimated so many trees in our area.

Anyone familiar with a guy that does CCW in pitt county named satterwhite he lost a ton of his tress this year. I'm assuming bagworms because they all died rapidly like mine are.

 

[Hazmt]

I go them in an unwanted fir in my yard. It was in the open and after it died, I burned it and the little tree killers, dug up the roots and removed the threat. Things don't bode well for your remaining evergreens.

 

[Mack in N.C.]

yes bag worms. Cut those dang non native lelands down and plant something native that can handle the diseases and bugs and heat here. lelands cant.

 

[ncscrubmaster]

i just looked them up and what I thought would get rid of them don’t seem to work. I got them also.

 

[Deerherder]

I had to cut mine down once the worms got them. I think Sevin will kill them but it doesn’t revitalize the tree.

 

[Helium]

We always sprayed while in the bag before hatch

 

[shurshot]

I’ve had them twice, just recently as last week. First time I sprayed Sevin on them. They all died within a day. This time all I had was malathion. Took a pump sprayer and soaked them. Next morning a lot were still alive so I soaked them again. Came home from work and they were either all dead or in the dying stages. They have to eat to survive and poke their head and body out to do so. Once they contact the poison, they will be done. Their cocoon can only protect them but so much. Spraying works folks ....

 

[shaggy]

I’ve had them twice, just recently as last week. First time I sprayed Sevin on them. They all died within a day. This time all I had was malathion. Took a pump sprayer and soaked them. Next morning a lot were still alive so I soaked them again. Came home from work and they were either all dead or in the dying stages. They have to eat to survive and poke their head and body out to do so. Once they contact the poison, they will be done. Their cocoon can only protect them but so much. Spraying works folks ....

My issue last year and this year were the numbers of them. There is literally several hundred and before I noticed(tree is on side of house) they've done major damage. At least 40% of the tree is browned out already.

 

[Mack in N.C.]

Best advise I can give anyone on here is to plant Native trees. Lelands are terrible trees around here.

 

[snakeskinner]

Took mine a very long time to recover. Combine that with the fact that they were already huge, i cut them down and started over.

 

[hitman6397]

We had them a few years ago. Picked them all off by hand they were also all around the tree on other plants and on the ground. Burned them the tree looked like the 1 in your pics but has made a full recovery.